In this book Fuhrman investigates the Oklahoma County'scriminal justice system by interviewing major participants, including the forensic chemistJoyce Gilchrist and the district attorney Bob Macy, reviewing case files and trial transcripts, and examining police records. He concludes that "catastrophic errors occur in many death penalty cases".[1] Fuhrman uncovers a plethora of errors, misconduct, and general disregard for life and innocence in Oklahoma County. Despite his history as a strict "law and order" type police officer who used to be a fervent supporter of capital punishment, his book details his arguments for why death row in Oklahoma is problematic and needs to be revamped. He focuses particularly on the behavior and unwavering punitiveness of Macy and his "Black Wizard" star of a forensic chemist, Gilchrist. In his investigation into Oklahoma's death penalty machine, Fuhrman documents systematic errors in capital cases, most notably behavior that borders on prosecutorial misconduct (including Macy suborning perjury, inflaming the jury's prejudices, overzealous personal confidence in witnesses and evidence, and withholding evidence), and forensic testimony by Gilchrist that was later discovered to be untruthful, impossible, prejudicial and misleading. Fuhrman notes how the pressure to convict obscured the prosecutor's duty towards justice over conviction; in Oklahoma County, once a case was determined to be a capital case, anything less than an execution was considered failure.

Fuhrman talks not only about the prosecution team withholding evidence that could have proved the innocence of defendants, but also about the unwillingness of officials to accept the factual innocence of individuals exonerated and released from Oklahoma's death row. Fuhrman puts most of the blame for the problems in Oklahoma on Bob Macy and Joyce Gilchrist. He concludes that many of the prosecutors in there were incompetent, and were also maliciously and intentionally covering up mistakes, hiding and planting evidence, and ignoring contradictory evidence, but that Macy in particular was a force to be reckoned with, giving "fire and brimstone" closing arguments and often breaking into tears during trial.[2] Fuhrman argues that it is Macy's legacy within the prosecutor's office in Oklahoma County that has caused the rash of wrongful convictions in Oklahoma. In particular, Macy's "frontier justice" and "win at all costs" mentality have permeated the prosecutorial system and have led to a system that tolerates misconduct and perjury. He concludes that in counties like Los Angeles County, California, and Arlington, Virginia, the death row machine and the criminal justice system work, but that in Southern counties like Oklahoma County or Harris County, Texas, racism, prejudicial attitudes and the desire for revenge cause the system to falter.[citation needed] In order to fix the system in the South, Fuhrman suggests that executions be made public and that jurors no longer have to be "death qualified" (that is, they can be opposed to the death penalty and also sit on a jury in a capital case).[citation needed]